Tragedy Again Strikes Poland in Death of President and Leaders

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For the second time this decade Poland has suffered the death of a leader when President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and many members of the Polish government were killed in a tragic plane crash on April 10 while flying to a ceremony in Russia to honor the 20,000 Polish citizens murdered by Soviet Communists in World War II.



It was a chance to heal the wounds spanning most of the 20th century between Poland and Russia and was seen as a chance to finally begin the healing process. It was the first time Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took a personal role in matters with Poland signifying a major shift in relations between the two nations.



To his credit, Putin took charge of the disaster and honored the Polish President, demonstrating a rare glimpse of the personal side of the powerful Russian leader, as he personally oversaw the recovery and return of Kaczynski's remains to the Polish capitol.



Nearly five years ago to the day, April 2, 2005, Pope John Paul II, the Polish Pope who captivated the world, died in Rome. The beloved Pope John Paul was the first non-Italian Pope since 1520 and his election as Pope represented a major shift in the Roman Catholic church.



BBC World News

The Queen has expressed her "deepest sympathy" to the Polish government and people after the death of President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash.

Gordon Brown said the whole world would be "saddened" and Tory leader David Cameron called it a "black day".



Scores died in the crash in Russia, including Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland's president in exile during the Communist years, who lived in London.

The Rev Canon Bronislaw Gostomski, from a Polish church in London, also died.
The aircraft was carrying more than 80 passengers, including some of the country's top military and civilian leaders, as well as the president's wife, when it came down in thick fog as it approached Smolensk airport, in western Russia.



The delegation was flying in from the Polish capital, Warsaw, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet forces during World War II.

Polish and Russian officials said no-one survived the crash.



'Deeply upset'

In her message to the Polish government, the Queen spoke of the president's "long and distinguished public service".

She also paid tribute to the other victims, including Mr Kaczorowski.



"The deaths of many other of Poland's leading figures, including former President in Exile Kaczorowski, only serve to deepen this tragedy," she said.

Here in America President Barack Obama called Polish prime minister Donald Tusk to express his condolences: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kaczynski family, the loved ones of those killed in this tragic plane crash, and the Polish nation," he said.

What Obama did not say was Poland was long one of the strongest allies of the USA in Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War and after. There are over 10 million Americans of Polish descent.

I wrote a history of the Nazi and Communist movements called "Saviors of the 20th Century, Hitler and Stalin - The War of Annihilation between the Nazis and Communists" and in it was a chapter called Poland - Armageddon of WW II. Because of the tragic history of Poland throughout the century I believe it merits another look so we can understand the difficulties the Polish people have had to overcome. Here is the excerpt from the book.

Poland - Armageddon of WW II

Poland, the Armageddon of World War II, the proverbial scene of the decisive battle between good and evil. In the history of civilization it is doubtful any country faced the dire conditions and the deadly consequences faced by Poland from 1939-1945.

Sandwiched between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, it was the only nation to be partitioned without a vote between the Nazi and Communist Empires as a result of the 1939 non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin. Poland was a geographic buffer between these two menacing monsters, a buffer that vanished off the face of the earth during the month of September 1939.

Both Hitler and Stalin had reasons to hate the Poles. Fact is both felt justified in ravaging the nation for their own purposes. After World War I Poland humiliated the Germans as a result of the severe conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. Over one and one half million Germans were forced to abandon their homes to Poles because of the treaty.

In 1939 Poland was the fastest growing industrial nation in Europe and was much needed to support the German war machine. Both Hitler and Himmler had rejected their Catholic upbringing and there were more Catholics in Poland than any other country, making it a convenient target for religious persecution. It was also the gateway for the inevitable invasion of the Soviet Union and of vital strategic importance.

More ominously, it was the home to nearly three million Jews before the war. Ever since Catherine II established the Pale for Jews they had moved into Poland and had recently represented nearly eight percent of the population, the most of any nation in Europe.

Earlier in the 20th century, before World War I, there were over thirty million Poles, but four million were killed in World War I, thirty-four times the American loss in the war. Almost all the fighting of that World War took place on Polish soil. Yet deaths were not the only suffering by the Poles. Devastation was astounding as over 1.7 million buildings were destroyed, 6,969 churches, and 40% of all railway bridges and stations during the First World War.

The Soviets also had reason to dislike Poland. When the Communists swept to power in Russia and successfully won the Russian Civil War, the Soviet leaders decided to continue rolling right over Europe with their revolution. The mighty Red Army attacked the Poles in August of 1920 driving to the very gates of Warsaw.

A miracle of sorts happened when the embattled Poles fought back valiantly August 15 in the Battle of Warsaw outmaneuvering the stunned and vastly superior Red Army and routing them on August 18, thus saving Europe from Soviet conquest. It was a setback that reverberated throughout the Kremlin and caused the Communists to slow down the worldwide revolution they advocated. In time it came to be known as the day of the Polish Miracle.

Yet there was more, for though the Soviets were a new nation dominated by Jewish-Bolshevik leaders and committed to stopping anti-Semitic actions, they were also committed to driving the opposition Jewish groups from influence, adversaries such as the Jewish Zionist and Bund nationalist parties.

Because of its proximity Poland had become a haven for Jewish outcasts from the Soviet Union after the revolution and civil war - those on the wrong side of Judaism who became enemies of the Bolshevik State. It also was a safe haven for all those fleeing Communist persecution throughout the Soviet Empire. To the Soviets, Poland was a nation harboring many dangerous fugitives and traitors.

Poland also was a hotbed of another faction of Jewish revolutionaries who were committed to the Communist Marxist revolution and the Soviet Bolshevik leadership. Thus some Polish Jews were enemies of the Soviets and many more were allies. Ironically Jewish participation in the Marxist revolution in Poland earlier caused the Poles and Ukrainians to distrust them as well. Active Jewish involvement in the revolutions that swept Europe after World War I would come back to haunt them.

Beyond the desire of the Soviets to save some Jews from Nazis and punish some for opposing the Bolsheviks, the Soviets were also in desperate need of access to the Baltic Sea north of Poland. A treaty with Hitler gave Stalin freedom to overrun the Baltic States and gain that ocean access.

By 1921 the Polish population dropped to twenty-seven million, then grew to thirty-two million by 1931, the last official census before World War II. It was a diverse population as Ukrainians and Belorussians were the majority, Poles made up one third of the population, and Jews were about eight percent.

Germany and the Soviets announced to a stunned world the signing of the non-aggression pact at the end of August 1939 and on September 1 the Nazi invasion of Poland from the west was launched. It was to be a coordinated attack with the Red Army attacking from the east.

Over 1,800,000 German soldiers poured across the border with 2,600 tanks and over 2,000 aircraft supporting the invasion. Typical of the new German strategy designed by Hitler personally, it was to be a rapid and deadly strike. The Poles, like the rest of the world, were caught unprepared and less than a third of the Polish military was able to mobilize against the Nazi invasion.

Stalin, to the chagrin of Hitler, did not attack immediately as promised but waited to see what kind of resistance the Germans would encounter. He was also wary of the reaction of England and America to the invasion, as he needed Churchill and Roosevelt to be allies if he were to have any hope of defeating Hitler and Germany.

By waiting until the Germans destroyed the Polish army, he could proclaim the Soviets were invading Poland to protect the Ukrainian and Belorussian populations living in Poland from the Nazis, a tactic that infuriated Hitler when he learned of it.

The Soviet war machine finally did roll across the eastern border of Poland September 17 as Hitler's forces had secured the German half of the country and were rapidly moving into the Soviet territory. For a time it appeared as if the former bitter enemies and now allies might start fighting each other as they laid claim to the Polish nation.

One of the most intriguing comments of the dilemma faced by the Poles came from their decorated General Wladyslaw Anders, Polish Commander, speaking to General George Patton later in the war. Anders said:

"With the Nazis, we lose our lives; with the Soviets, we lose our souls… If I found my army between the Nazis and the Soviets, I would attack in both directions."

By October 5 Poland could hold out no longer against the onslaught from the Nazis and Red Army, and finally surrendered. Poland ceased to exist. Still in just a few weeks of fighting the Poles inflicted heavy losses on the Germans, 50,000 men, 697 planes and 993 tanks and armored cars, while thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians were able to escape to France and Britain.

The defeat in battle was just the beginning of the Polish suffering. In the 20 years following World War I Poland had rebuilt her industry and railroads. She now had over 5,500 railroad locomotives, 11,350 passenger cars, and 164,000 freight cars. Over 1,250 miles of new railroad track had been laid and Polish highways had been expanded by over 30%.

All of these resources were needed by the Nazis in their ambitious plans to reunite the German Empire. A vast network of nearly 200 concentration camps were soon developed throughout Poland and the surrounding area first for the purpose of providing labor, and later as the sites of the Nazi death camps. The need for industrial output was the priority and over two million Poles were among five million prisoners sent into forced labor.

When the occupation was completed Germany controlled about 13 million Poles including 2.1 million Jews, and the Soviets controlled about 13 million Poles including about 1.2 million Jews. Over 600,000 people fled from the German to Soviet sector including over 350,000 Jews during the next year. Of the total population in Soviet occupied areas about one tenth were Jewish, one third were Poles, and the majority were Ukraine and Belorussian.

Germany immediately threw 1.2 million Poles from their ancestral homes for resettlement in ghettos to make room for Germans who lost their homes after World War I. The Soviets and Polish were bitter enemies and the Soviets captured 230,000 Polish soldiers including 25,000 Jewish soldiers. Millions of Poles died in the hands of the Germans and Soviets.

Before the Nazis were driven out of Poland nearly 2.5 million Poles were murdered in camps and another 500,000 were starved to death. Millions more died during forced labor, resettlement and deportation.

As for Poles living in the Soviet lands, 1.6 million Poles were deported to the gulags and prisons of Russia including over 130,000 Jews sent from the Soviet occupied area of Poland to Siberia as "enemies of the state." Ironically this deportation probably saved them from the Nazi holocaust. In addition to the Polish citizens imprisoned or forced into labor camps the Soviets murdered many thousands of Polish military.

Soviet treatment of the Poles changed only when Hitler violated the non-aggression treaty and attacked the Soviet Union using Poland as the launch point in June of 1941. This action caused some positive events to take place in the midst of the carnage.

On August 12, 1941, with the German army advancing on Moscow, the Supreme Soviet granted amnesty to all Polish citizens and released all Polish prisoners from gulags and prisons in order to help in the fight against Nazi Germany. The millions of Poles sent to Soviet prisons were now free, unlike the fate of most Russian citizens sent to the deadly Soviet gulag prison system.

A total of nearly six million Poles died (civilian and military) during the war, ranking Poland third behind the Soviet Union and Germany for the most deaths in the European sector of World War II. This represented nearly 22% of the entire Polish population before the war.

When the dust finally settled on the deadliest conflict in history over fifteen million people had died in Polish concentration camps. Most were Soviet and Communist prisoners captured when the Germans overran the Soviet occupied Poland, the Ukraine and western Soviet territory extending all the way to Moscow. Tens of millions of Soviet military and civilians, Communists and Communist sympathizers were exterminated. Poland once again lay in ruins and it was to remain a Soviet state for the next half century.

As destiny would have it, Poland made history in quite another way. On the very same day as the Polish Miracle, May 18, 1920, when the Poles stopped the mighty Soviet Red Army and captured Kiev, in Poland a baby boy named Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born.



This young boy grew up and helped organize a secret theater group during the Nazi occupation. By 1944 he became a Catholic priest in a secret order in Poland. Soon the equally murderous Communists under Stalin drove out the murderous Nazi regime.

The priest became a Cardinal, and then the Cardinal became the first Polish Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II. In time he would use his influence as Pope to help the Solidarity movement in Poland oppose the Communist rule, and would help lead the Polish people out from under the shackles of Communism into a new life of freedom.

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South Side Chicago Obama at Sarah Palin's Tea Party - He Just Keeps Her in the Spotlight

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Sounding more like a South Side Chicago bully who has been put down by a girl, President Obama once again lost his presidential cool and blasted Sarah Palin for questioning what he considers to be good for the nation.

Before the ink was even dry on his nuclear agreement with Russia and before he had a chance to leave Prague and return to America the President was on the defensive from across the world blasting Palin for questioning his nuclear energy and offshore drilling policies announced just days earlier.



Unfortunately for Obama, this lady just won't go away and each time she speaks up there are thousands of people cheering her on and a national television audience fueled by both sides of the media, the liberal haters and conservative lovers. Sarah invited Obama to a tea party and he should have stayed away.

After Obama made overtures toward the Republicans by endorsing nuclear energy and seeming to endorse the Palin "drill baby drill" oil and gas policy, Palin brought a little bit of reality to his moves by dissecting the real meaning of his "new initiatives".



She said the Obama nuclear policy would take decades to implement because it takes nearly ten years just to approve one nuclear reactor. As a tool to help American energy independence, she called it everything but a fraud. The overwhelming cost and environmental regulations facing any new reactor will insure it is far into the future, much too far to help with American energy independence now.

As for his adoption of the patented Palin "drill baby drill" policy, she pointed out that he removed more known oil fields from production than added new areas for drilling. Then she noted he was going to delay the drilling licenses until 2012, giving the radical conservation groups an extended amount of time to launch legal challenges to slow down the licensing and increase the costs to Americans.

"I really have no response," Obama told ABC News. "Because last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues."



The interview occurred Thursday in Prague, where Obama signed a treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that orders both nations to shrink their nuclear arsenals. That deal that must still be ratified by the Russian parliament and the U.S. Senate.

Palin was referring to another development on the nuclear front this week, a rewriting of American nuclear strategy.



Among many other elements of that new plan, the U.S. makes plain that if a non-nuclear nation is in compliance with an international nonproliferation treaty, the United States will not threaten or use nuclear weapons against it.

If such a state were to use chemical or biological weapons against the U.S. or its allies, it would face a potentially devastating conventional military strike by the U.S., but not a nuclear one.

North Korea and Iran were not included in that pledge because they do not cooperate with other countries on nonproliferation standards.



"It's unbelievable. Unbelievable," Palin told Fox News on Wednesday. "No administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step that we just found out President Obama is supporting today."

Asked about that criticism from Palin and other Republicans, Obama said: "If the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin."



Unlike the Democrats in Congress who cowed to the power of the president, Sarah Palin is not going to just sit back and take it from the White House. After his remarks got wide play in the liberal media Palin was in New Orleans today at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference and cut loose with both barrels to resounding applause and ovations from the several thousand attending the event.

Palin shot back in her comments Friday, mocking the president for "the vast nuclear experience that he acquired as a community organizer." She said that his alleged experience had not helped him make progress in the issue with Iran and North Korea.

Palin was greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm by the delegates here, who entered the hall to find Alaskan caribou jerky waiting on their seats. Hundreds of flashbulbs went off when Palin came onstage, and standing ovations and chants of "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah" broke out throughout her remarks.

Palin, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said the Obama doctrine involved "coddling enemies and alienating allies," attacking the administration for its handling of Israel, Iran and North Korea. She criticized the administration for its "yes we can spread the wealth around" attitude and said its programs, which she said took money from future generations, involved what "a lot of us" consider "stealing."

She suggested alternatives to the Obama administration's "Yes we can" slogan, among them "repeal and replace," in reference to the health care bill, and "don't retreat, reload," which prompted a standing ovation.

Palin said "don't retreat, reload," was "not a call for violence," despite what Democrats and members of the media have suggested. She said the media is "so desperate to discredit the people's movement, the tea party movement" that they make up such claims.

Later, after saying the word "shoot," she quipped, "I said shoot, I'm sorry," prompting laughter from the crowd.

Palin said that too many in Washington see money as free, referencing the stimulus package passed by the Obama administration. She quoted Bill Clinton's comment about then-candidate Obama during the presidential campaign, stating in a deep voice, "If this ain't the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."



On energy policy, she said "the left has waged a multi-front war on conventional resources." Palin dismissed the president's decision to open up some offshore areas for drilling, saying, "they banned more offshore drilling than they allowed." She said the administration had purposely built a delay into opening the areas "to give environmentalists more time to sue."

"Let's drill, baby, drill, not stall, baby, stall," said Palin.

And the debate between the president and citizen Sarah goes on.

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Al Gore, King of Global Warming - Where are Obama's Friends When He Needs Them?

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Al Gore is the latest Obama supporter to turn on him because he is not moving fast enough to line Al's pockets with millions of dollars.

Last spring at the urging of Gore and his Global Warming gang Obama asked Congress for the Cap and Trade legislation to regulate the nation's carbon emissions. It sounded like an interesting environmental move except for the fine print which can be found all too often in the Obama legislative agenda.



Nancy Pelosi immediately got the House to approve the bill but the Senate has taken a much deeper look at the proposal and what has come out may not be the pro-environment bill as advertised. It seems the bill creates yet another new stock exchange, this one for carbon emissions, and makes it profitable for polluting companies to get emission credits from companies that pollute less.

This interesting concept makes it possible to keep polluting as long as the entire industry stays below the total carbon allowed. This also makes a fortune for those who control stock and who run the exchanges and surprise, surprise, Al Gore and Goldman Sachs are at the top of the heap of greed mongers who will financially benefit from the exchange as well as the Obama promotion of environmental causes.



Now Gore has already made over $100 million being the Pied Piper of Global Warming and he is still reeling from all the debate over the falsification of records by global warming scientists to justify the worldwide crisis Gore says we face.

So now he blasts the Obama move toward energy independence and Obama's adoption of the Sarah Palin "drill baby drill" energy plan. It is just another sign that when Obama's supporters don't get what they expect from him they turn on him.



Gore backed an article written by Maggie Fox, CEO of his own environmental group, Alliance for Climate Protection.



Fox wrote that President Obama "must now deliver a comprehensive plan for curbing carbon pollution so we can invest in the clean energy technologies we will need in the 21st century. The longer we spend time discussing whether and where to drill for oil, the longer we delay a more comprehensive solution. What we need now is presidential leadership on comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, which can end our reliance on foreign oil, create jobs and make our country more secure."



Of course Fox didn't say that is if we start drilling for oil and natural gas right now we will move much faster toward energy independence. Nor did she say how much her boss, Al, will make if we invest like she wants. Nor did she mention that Al Gore and his partner from Goldman Sachs already control the stock of most alternative energy companies or that Goldman already has the exchange ready to pump money into someone's pockets.

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Israel Again Embarrasses Obama as Netanyahu Drops Out of Obama's Nuclear Summit Next Week

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed his plans and will not attend President Barack Obama’s nuclear summit beginning Monday in Washington. Israeli media reports that Netanyahu backed out after reports that Middle Eastern nations would use the 47-nation summit to criticize Israel’s failure to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.



This does raise an interesting concern with Obama's foreign policy and our treatment of allies. You see, the five major sponsors of nuclear weapons in the world, the so called NWC (Nuclear Weapons Club) are signers of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They are the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China. These are the nations currently in negotiations with Iran.



The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was approved in 1968 and closed in 1970. Today 189 countries have signed or acceded to approving the Treaty. North Korea originally signed the Treaty but withdrew in 2003. Three nations have never signed the Treaty, Israel, India and Pakistan. India, Pakistan and North Korea have admitted to testing nuclear weapons.

The only three countries refusing to sign the treaty are US allies. Of these it is widely known that Israel does have a nuclear capability even though they refuse to acknowledge it. Both India and Pakistan also have much smaller arsenals but they do have nuclear weapons. Why is the United States leading a worldwide effort to eliminate nuclear weapons yet we give billions of dollars in foreign aid to the only three countries who refuse to sign the agreement and are not bound by anything we propose? Is it time to reconsider our foreign policy?



If we can't influence these nations with nuclear weapons of mass destruction why are we so concerned with Iran who has no nuclear operating facility nor nuclear weapons? We are prepared to let Israel go to war with Iran simply because Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. but the Administration and media never mention the three countries who do have nuclear weapons and gained them by ignoring the United Nations and the Treaty.



Of the nations refusing to recognize the Treaty it is estimated India and Pakistan have under 100 nuclear weapons while North Korea has under 25. Israel has never offered information nor inspection of their nuclear generating and weapons producing facilities but best estimates are Israel has about 200 nuclear weapons along with nuclear and enhancement facilities to make additional warheads.



The center of Israel's weapons program is the Negev Nuclear Research Center near the desert town of Dimona (the center is usually identified simply as "Dimona"). A nuclear reactor and plutonium production facility was secretly built by France at this facility in the late 1950s and early 60s. All of the production and fabrication of special nuclear materials (plutonium, lithium-6 deuteride, and enriched and unenriched uranium) occurs at Dimona.

The NWC nations, the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China, are the same nations who were responsible for providing the nations refusing to sign the Treaty with the materials, equipment and fuel to build their own nuclear plants and nuclear weapons capability outside the Treaty.



France provided Israel with the nuclear weapons support. The United States and Canada were the source for the India nuclear program. North Korea's nuclear weapons programs was helped by the Soviet Union and then Russia. China was behind the Pakistan nuclear weapons program.

Is there something wrong with this picture? Our billions in foreign aid go to three of the four renegade nations with nuclear weapons while we do not require them to be part of the worldwide nuclear treaty that we support.

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Obama's Achilles Heel - Exploding National Debt

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Now that the hoop ala over the health care reform has subsided and learned people have had the time to analyze exactly what the White House and Congress slammed down our throats it is fast becoming obvious that the spiraling national debt is far greater than Obama and the Democrats want us to believe. In fact, new estimates by the very same Congressional Budget Office that said health care would reduce the debt now say we are in serious trouble.

Doug Elmendorf, best known for arbitrating the costs of various health care proposals, added his voice to a growing chorus of economic experts who predict dire consequences if political leaders don’t scale back spending, increase taxes or both, and soon.



Elmendorf noted a recent CBO report that pegged an increase in the public debt from $7.5 trillion at the end of 2009 to $20.3 trillion at the end of 2020 if President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget were to be implemented as written. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the debt would rise from 53 percent to 90 percent, CBO forecasted. The last time the percentage was that high was right after World War II.

What that means is if Congress passes the president's budget, which includes health care, our national debt will nearly triple in the next decade. To put that in perspective, when Presidents Roosevelt and Truman managed the massive debt needed to carry out World War II while also overcoming the long term consequences from the Great Depression, the ratio of debt to Gross National Product reached the highest level in history, about 120%. The Obama budget will cause it to rise from the current 53% of GNP to 90%, nearly doubling the debt. That does not include normal adjustments to be made.



To make this clearer, when the debt hit the peak in 1947 it was equivalent to $10 trillion today. That pulled the economy out of the great depression and into high gear to win World War II. The Obama debt will hit twice that much, $20.3 trillion by 2020.

As for the normal adjustments, they have already begun. CBO warned the Democrats in Congress that changing the student loan program that was approved in the health care bill will actually increase the deficit by an additional $52 billion by 2020, not reduce the deficit by $68 billion like the Democrats said.



In the study, the CBO explains how the accounting mandated through the Federal Credit Reform Act (FCRA) is the standard procedure used to record the budgetary costs of the government’s direct and guaranteed loan programs.

However, the CBO notes that FCRA cost estimates exclude the value of “market risks” and the loan programs’ “administrative expenses” while the CBO’s “fair value” estimates takes them into account.

This discrepancy between the two estimates results in the FCRA figure being a less “comprehensive” appraisal of the true cost to taxpayers of the federal government’s direct student loan program, according to the CBO report.

“Fair-value subsidy estimates, which include the cost of risk and administrative costs, provide a more comprehensive measure that allows the costs of the two programs to be compared on a level playing field,” states the study.



That little change in what the CBO reported to Congress to help justify the bill makes the debt increase by $120 billion, from the projected reduction of $68 billion to the actual deficit of $52 billion.

The same health care bill allowed them to claim a $450 billion savings in Medicare costs by reducing the payment to doctors by 21%. Yet Congress promised to fix this problem by restoring the reduction. That bill is to be debated this month and Pelosi has promised it will be passed. If they don't pass it thousands of more doctors will refuse to treat Medicare patients meaning there will not be enough doctors to treat all the new patients Obama is flooding into the health care system. But if Congress delivers on their promise, it will raise the debt by another $450 billion.

Such adjustments can be found throughout the flawed health care legislation and either these accounting tricks were known to the White House advisors or they are just plain stupid. The rush to get Obama his historic bill will come back to haunt us for the next decade.

Three things are clear to anyone who digs through the reality of the Obama health care plan. Taxes have to go up, insurance premiums have to go up, and the only thing historic about the massive bill is our national debt will hit a historic high.



As Doug Elmendorf, head of the CBO warned yesterday, the nation’s fiscal path is “unsustainable,” and the problem “cannot be solved through minor tinkering.”

The calculations by Congress of every new entitlement program have been multiples off the mark. The 1965 Medicare program was supposed to cost only $9 billion by 1990. Instead it cost $67 billion in 1990 and it now costs $521 billion.

People must be told the truth or the next two generations will face a bankrupt national government. The Obama promise is also the Obama Achilles Heel and that says very little for the future security of our nation.

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Campaign Financing in America, the Most Special of Special Interests

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Lobbying has been part of the government process ever since the fight for freedom and adoption of the US Constitution in America. No doubt as a result of the pressure put on colonists by special interests during the formation of America, great care was made to protect the fledgling Republic from these marauding manipulators of governments, wars and people.

During debate over the new treasury department there was an argument over the need to form a US National Bank, sought by the international bankers who were bankrolling the revolution and arms bought by the colonists. The fear of international bankers controlling the economy and printing the nation's money was debated extensively. Opposition was led by Thomas Jefferson.



In time the First National Bank was approved and chartered to a group representing the House of Rothschild. When Andrew Jackson was elected our 7th president and served from 1829-1837 he blocked the renewal of the First National Bank charter by vetoing the Congressional bill. It was a bitter battle with the banking interests and before it was through there was an assassination attempt on the president.

So we know special interests have a long and dubious stranglehold on our nation's capitol.

Today it is more prevalent than ever as witnessed by the accommodation of big banks in the TARP program, big labor in the stimulus and health care reforms, Wall Street and Goldman Sachs in the watered down version of Financial reform being considered, Goldman Sachs again in the cap and trade bill proposed, the unions again in the card check bill, and all sources of big bucks in the total lack of campaign reform not being considered by Congress nor advocated by the administration.



Campaign reform, the only hope for America if it goes far enough to break the stranglehold of special interests on our government, remains the elusive dream of justice and the only effective tool to wipe out corruption.

Obama directly spent nearly three quarters of a billion dollars getting elected. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars were spent on his behalf by other political and special interest groups. The same groups are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of our elected officials yet the media gives no attention to this massive buy out of our politicians.



Paid political advertising must be stopped or our government will always be for sale to the highest bidder. There is no paid advertising in Great Britain yet their government seems to function. Most European nations control the licensing of media companies to a degree that prohibits massive television campaigns yet they seem to function.

Political advertising, which dominates the airways during primary and general election campaigns with often obnoxious and misleading ads should be banned and those media corporations getting federal licenses to use the airways must be required to make available limited time for all legitimate candidates through debates or other forums.



Estimates are that over $5.3 billion dollars were spent during 2008 alone for political television ads for congress and the presidency. That includes spending by candidates, campaign committees, political parties, political action groups, and special interest groups. A few million more was spent on the internet.

Over $5.5 billion was spent to elect 469 politicians. Hundreds of million more dollars have been spent since then by special interests on behalf of legislation they want approved.



No longer can our federal elected officials spend weekends in Washington working on the nation's business because they are running for re-election the day they take office. Of course billions of more dollars are being spent by the same groups to raise the money needed to bombard us with those political ads.



Unfortunately, many media outlet owners are now addicted to the political revenue to stay in business and that raises the most obvious conflict of interest possible for the news media. How could they possibly be advocates or even report fairly on the need for campaign finance reform when their jobs are dependent on that campaign revenue?



It is time Americans realize the campaign money is the root of all evil in Washington and in our media. It is time we realize that meaningful reform, missing from the agenda of our president and both political parties, is the only way to end corruption and special influence peddling in our nation's capitol. It is time we recognize that without such reform, our politicians are on a fast track to permanent slavery to special interests.



Yes, it is time the people demand their elected representatives stop the policy of selling out our government to the highest bidder and ban political advertising in America. European countries have proven that it can be done Constitutionally.



Just as important, if it was done there would be no need for never ending campaigns, for politicians to start raising money for the next campaign the minute they are elected, for them to be spending all their free time raising money rather than taking care of our nation's business, and most of all, for them to be owned by special interests.



Demand campaign finance reform from your politicians. Demand more than just empty promises or watered down actions to achieve these reforms. Do this and there is a chance the Republic may survive. Fail to do this and you will live forever with the corrupt system we now have in place.

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